Snap-hiss Dolls

Finishing touches

Finishing touches can really make a doll go from 'pretty good' to 'good' or 'great'. It's just a few simple things that can be done easily when you're done with the main bits of your doll. I'm a toolshader, and I use a complex graphics program. You won't be able to follow this tutorial if you're using MSPaint or something similar. Sorry, it's just how I doll. I'm going to assume you know your way around whatever program you're using, because I use the GIMP and I don't know Photoshop/PSP shortcuts and menus etc. I'm also going to hope you can find what I'm talking about if it's under a different name in your program. And finally I'm going to assume you already know how to use your program pretty well; this tutorial won't teach you how to do things like select or use the airbrush or change tool settings.
Okay, so you've made a nice doll. It's pretty good, but could use a little something extra. Here's the one I'll be working on. Base by DHF. She looks okay, but I don't think she's quite ready.
First of all, the base is looking a bit boring, unoriginal. Loads of dollers use this base, so let's make it a bit more unique. A lot of people never bother to change the skin colour, so let's change the skin colour. I find that if I want to make the skin tone lighter, I should increase the saturation and lightness of the base, and if I want to make it darker, I should decrease saturation and lightness. Usually it's best to keep the hue the same. Make sure you check the rules on the base maker's site before you change the base at all. Almost all dollers will let you change things like skin colour and eyes, but there are a few who're more strict. Just be careful.
Blue eyes, how cliche! I've just selected all the coloured parts of the eye, and messed around with the hue, saturation and lightness a bit to give her green eyes. Also, her eyebrows are brown, while her hair is blonde. To fix this, I picked a medium colour from the hair, then drew over the eyebrows with the pencil/draw tool at about 50% opacity. Make sure the pencil has a hard edge/isn't aliased.
Make-up. Lipstick is easy, just mess around with the colour of the lips the same way you did the eyes. Eyeshadow is pretty simple, too. On a separate layer, draw lines around the top of the eyes with the pencil tool, then use a gaussian blur, only about 1 or 2 pixel radius. Some of the blurred colour might overlap the actual eye a bit, so get a hard/non-aliased eraser and get rid the bits you don't want. Blusher is much the same, only this time (on a new layer) draw a blob of colour where the make-up will go, then gaussian blur it, with a setting of 2-4 pixels. The setting will mostly depend on the base size. Again, if some of the blur overlaps the eyes, erase it. Some of the blur may go off the side of the face. This can be a problem if you want to make your doll into a transparent gif, so erase around the face as well, even if you can't see anything there. Sometimes the colour is a bit too harsh and it looks like she's overdone her make-up, so it can be a good idea to reduce the transparency of the layer.
Outlines are really important. Shading the outlines is one technique even great dollers miss out, and it can sometimes be the thing that really lets the doll down. It barely takes a minute, and it can make a big difference. Just select only the outline of one of the items of clothing, and using whatever method you usually use, shade it. Of course, you still want it to be an outline, so make sure it stays slightly darker than the rest. I usually shade normally, but using only the medium and dark colours from the pallette - I don't use any of the highlight colours to shade outlines. Sometimes, it doesn't look like it makes much of a difference, but it can really improve a doll.
Okay, now for something super-crazy important that a lot of people don't do. Shadows. Everything has a shadow, right? In fact, you draw shadows on your dolls all the time - that's what folds are, really. So why shouldn't a skirt cast a shadow on the doll's legs? And hair should cast a shadow on the doll's face, right?
We'll do the top first. First, make a copy of the layer with the top on it and fill the shape of the top with very dark grey. Now, move everything in this layer down one pixel. Now we'll gaussian blur this layer, with a setting of 1-2 pixels. Put this layer behind the top's layer. You'll see some areas of grey where we don't want shadow, so using whatever method you like best, delete all of the shadow that is either hiding underneath the top - we can't see it so it's pointless - or is floating outside the base. There might still be a few bits of grey you don't want, so just get rid of these with an eraser. The last step is to play with the transparency/opacity of the shadow layer. Anything from about 10% to 70% opacity can work, it depends on the doll. Again, it might not look like it makes a difference, but you'll see how much better things look if you quickly hide the shadow layer, then bring it back for a before/after look at things.

For the hair, you can use exactly the same method, but since you don't want the shadow to be so harsh, make sure the opacity is lower.
Now the skirt is going to be a bit different. It's going to cast a different sort of shadow on the legs. The method is pretty much the same, though, you'll just need to change a few things. Make a copy layer of the skirt and fill it with dark grey like before. Because the skirt is casting a bigger shadow, move the grey down about 4 pixels, and maybe to the side a pixel or two if you want. Just like before, we're going to gaussian blur the shadow, but with a setting of 4-8 pixels this time, and then put it behind the skirt layer. This bit's just like what we did on the top - delete what you don't want. With big shadows, there's an extra step that is really useful. Her left leg is forward, so it's touching the fabric, which means there won't be much shadow there. Use a soft/aliased eraser with a low opacity to get rid of some of the shadow on her left leg, and anywhere else that needs it. The general rule is that the closer to something it is, the less of a shadow it'll cast. And finally, reduce the transparency of the layer like before.

Adding shadows is pretty easy, especially when you're used to it and can do it within a minute. It's really useful in that it makes the clothes look less 'stuck on'; they look more 3D. It's always good to add shadow under hair and clothes, especially skirts. Jewellery is often light-coloured and blends in with the skin colour; adding a shadow stops that. Even little things like adding shadow under a hand that's over a piece of clothing helps.
So now we have a slightly better doll. Well done!